In a continuing effort to improve the quality of shipping fruits, we, the inventors, typically hybridize a large number of peach, nectarine, plum, apricot, and cherry seedlings each year. We also grow a lesser number of open pollinated seeds of each of these fruits. The present invention relates to a new and distinct variety of interspecific tree which has been denominated varietally as ‘Plumsweet XVI’.
During a typical blooming season we isolate as seed parents both individual and groups of different plum trees by covering them with screen houses. A hive of bees is placed inside each such house, and bouquets to provide pollen from different plum, apricot, and interspecific hybrid trees are placed in buckets near the trees approximately every two days for the duration of the bloom. During 2004 one such house containing ‘Plumsweettwo’ (U.S. Plant Pat. No. 14,196) plum tree was crossed by us in this manner. To pollinate this plum, we selected bouquets from several sources of apricot and interspecific hybrid trees without keeping specific written details. Upon reaching maturity the fruit from this plum tree was harvested and the seeds were removed, cracked, stratified and germinated as a group with the label “H15”. They were grown as seedlings on their own root in our greenhouse and upon reaching dormancy transplanted to a cultivated area of our experimental orchard located near Le Grand, Calif. in Merced County (San Joaquin Valley). During the summer of 2008 the claimed variety was selected by us as a single plant from the group of seedlings described above. Subsequent to origination of the present variety of interspecific tree, we asexually reproduced it by budding and grafting in the experimental orchard described above, and such reproduction of plant and fruit characteristics were true to the original plant in all respects. The reproduction of the variety included the use of ‘Nemaguard’ (unpatented) rootstock upon which the present variety was compatible and true to type.
The present variety is similar to its seed parent, ‘Plumsweettwo’ plum (U.S. Plant Pat. No. 14,196), by being self-unfruitful and by producing fruit that is full red in flesh color, firm in texture, and very good in flavor, but is distinguished therefrom by producing fruit that is larger in size, that is a red and green two-tone in skin color instead of full purple, and that matures about two weeks earlier.
The present variety is most similar to ‘Plumsweet XIV’ (U.S. Plant Pat. No. 23,686) interspecific tree, by being self-unfruitful and by producing fruit that is a green and red two-tone in skin color, full red in flesh color, firm in texture, juicy, and sweet in flavor, but is distinguished therefrom by producing fruit that is much more oblate in shape, that is larger in size, and that is less prone to skin cracking.